This week I was visiting with our High School Confirmation Candidates preparing them for their Confirmation coming up in April with Bishop Vasquez. We were discussing the theology of Holy Communion and I shared with them one of the pitfalls of the Early Church…and quite frankly even today…about who Jesus really is in the Body and Blood.

I explained to them…If we were to go back 1800 years to the first centuries of our faith we would probably come across any number of confusing understandings of Jesus. Some would say that Jesus was 100% God and couldn’t possibly have been human…God would never bring himself down into our human condition. Others might say that he was 100% human but certainly not God…how could a human being ever be God? Still others would say that Jesus was 50% God and 50% human…which is absurd…obviously. All three of these were heresies in the early church and the reason for the formulation of the Nicene Creed in 325 which clarified his Humanity and Divinity…the same creed you and I pray every single Sunday just after the homily. And so…to this day…the Church professes that Jesus is 100% God and 100% Human.

The 2nd Century North African church father Tertullian explained the incarnation…the real presence of Jesus Christ…this way…God loved his own flesh. This is an odd thing to consider. We almost never think of God in this way…but it’s true…God loves his own body. In fact for other religions of the time…even to today…the incarnation of God…the fact that God would actually take on a human body…is quite scandalous. Gods never became the same as their subjects…which is one of the most remarkable things about God…He did…he was born into this messy…complicated…dysfunctional human experience…of course remaining without sin himself. You ever notice…in the gospels people where always wanting to touch him…get up close to him…they pressed upon him…they wanted to be near his body. And yet this carnality of our faith has always confused us because it’s so much easier to believe in God way up there in the eternity of heaven’s vastness than it is to believe that he is actually down here with us…100% in body…amidst the ridiculousness of our human folly. But it happened and it happens every single time we celebrate mass. God loves his body…his literal body on the Altar and his Mystical Body made up of our bodies.

I bring this up is because I wonder how many of us know how good we really are…how sacred we are. Our souls certainly…but our bodies too. Do you know how good you are…how pleasing you are to God…right now as you are…in your very body. Yes we sin…we sometimes do bad things…but we are still good…because all that he creates is good.

It’s a quandary for us Catholics. For better or worse…set deep into the fabric of Catholic Culture lies a difficulty with our bodies...which by the way is the very basis for much of the Protestant Theology…that the human person…body and soul…is depraved rather than good. It’s true…we don’t always allow ourselves to see the goodness that is present in us. We Catholics especially have been conditioned to believe that we are unworthy…living lives marked by sinfulness rather than goodness. Because of that we don’t always treat ourselves well…which then leads us to not treating others well. And it ends up feeling awkward to actually be told…you are good you are beautiful you are important to me. Think about the last time someone paid you that quality of a compliment…you are good. Nothing over the top or flippant or fake…someone important to you simply looking into your eyes and telling you that they are pleased with you and you are good. When is the last time someone has done that to you…when is the last time you’ve said that to someone in your life? It’s curious…we’re so unused to that kind of compliment…intended to bring us joy…that it ends up making us feel oddly uncomfortable and we just don’t believe it. And when we don’t believe it we stop saying it to ourselves and each other and our world quickly becomes brutal.

I bring all of this up as a reflection on our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah. God’s words are so simple and so wonderful…I will never forget you! Which takes us right to the epicenter of the question…do you believe that you are good and that God is deeply in love with you? God saying…I will never forget you…is the very same thing God saying I love you…you are important to me…and I will never lose you…no matter what.

It strikes at the very core of human anxiety. Lying just beneath our Sunday prayers…our Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s…our going to Confession and Communion…our feeding the poor and clothing the naked…our stations of the cross and fasting on Fridays lies unresolved anxiety. We pray and we hear that God will never leave us to face our troubles alone. The problem is…do we believe it…do we actually feel it? Is our faith strong enough to squelch our anxiety?

I don’t know about you…but for me…even saying mass every day at this altar…there still exists a subtle anxiety of going through life unnoticed…unimportant…forgotten by those who are important to me. I promise you it’s the same for you too. The fear of falling through the cracks of life and missing out on something truly remarkable. Questions press in on us like…Who am I? What am I doing here? How did I get here? Are you here with me God? Do you know me…does anyone really know me? Remember that homily I gave some time back when I shared that the single greatest need of the human person is the need to be known by someone else. It’s innate to our restless souls…we want to be known by God and each other. Being known…your feelings…your joys…your hopes…your fears…even your weaknesses…this is why Confession is so valuable…it allows us to be known by someone else. When others really know you it makes all the difference and you can withstand almost any difficulty…when you are really known by someone else.
So this is I want you to leave with today…this fact…God knows you and he loves you…everything about you…your soul and your body…and he will never forget you. Isn’t that wonderful. That’s really Good News. So be calm…don’t panic about your life…you are good…you are so good that God knows every hair on your head…and He will never forget who you are.

There’s a lovely story about St. Therese of Lesieux that during the last year of her life she corresponded regularly with a young man who was preparing to become a missionary priest. She was giving him Spiritual Direction. He was very sincere and pious but had some rather serious moral vices that he had yet to deal with. He greatly admired Therese and eagerly awaited her advice but he was afraid to tell her about these moral failures. So for a long time he would share with her only the good things in his life; never his brokenness and failings. He feared that if he told her the real truth she would lose respect for him and stop writing. Eventually he mustered up the courage to share his weaknesses with her. He wrote…Therese…you’re so holyI was afraid that you would judge me for my weaknesses and that which is wrong with me would become an object of horror to you and you would never write me again. Therese's responded…You must not know me very well if you are afraid that telling me your faults would lessen the tenderness that I feel for your soul.

Therese was speaking for God at that moment. We don’t know God very well if we fear that He will judge us and be angry with us for our weaknesses…our faults…our foolishness. Nothing we do can ever lessen God's tenderness towards us. Can a mother forget her infant…be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget…God says…I will never forget you. God loves his Body.